But there are other things — small things, certainly — that we can all do to make the world a slightly better place. Here’s a list of some of those things. Think of it as a jumping-off place, if you will, or make it your own expandable manifesto of ways to make this year a little less shitty.
Stop saying “fuck-tard.” In fact, how about all of us who aren’t currently enrolled in the fourth grade stop uttering any insulting mash-up ending in the suffix “-tard.” Made-up words are annoying enough, but those that disparage people of smaller mental capacities are just disgusting. “-tard” is short for “retard,” a word which, when used as a pejorative, proves your savagery.
Ditch the caveman beard. Facial hair made a comeback a couple years ago, which is great news for fans of the hirsute and any dude with a weak chin. But some guys appear to have missed the part about maintenance, and have wound up looking like they’re on their way to a Dan Haggerty lookalike contest. Beards don’t just stop growing, fellows. You must trim them. Unless you’re Rip Van Winkle or Santa Claus, chin whiskers belong on your chin, not draped over your collar.
Is it, though?
Andrew Hazlett/Flickr Creative Commons
Eliminate “It is what it is.” English-speaking America has lost the war on the endless iteration of the word “awesome.” But must we endure, for another year, this over-obvious statement with absolutely no meaning? You sound like a moron when you say it. Knock it off.
Scrap the clever bathroom signs. Here’s another reason why gender-neutral public restrooms is a good idea: I don’t want to stand in front of a pair of bathroom doors, trying to figure out which one is the little boy’s room — the one marked with the kokopelli or the howling coyote. I have to pee. That chalk drawing of a rooster looks a lot like the chalk drawing of a hen over on that other door, and neither of them is helpful or cute — they just make my bladder sore. How about we use those old reliable boy-girl symbols we’ve all come to recognize or else, I don’t know, how about stenciling powder-room doors with words like “men” and “women”?
Read on for more little things to do in 2017.
No more Emojis. Hashtags are ridiculous, and I’m confident we’ll all be rolling our eyes about them in a very few years. Emojis are a bigger problem. They are essentially modern hieroglyphics, and the use of them signals a kind of mass regression. We are not cartoonists, we are human beings. Can we possibly return to expressing dismay or joy with words?
Leave the wildlife at home, already. I am genuinely sorry you’re unable to leave the house without your pet vole, but he just bit my ankle. I go to local coffee shops to drink espresso and chat with my friends, not to watch your service peacock take a crap on a bistro table. Seriously?
Stop addressing dead people on Facebook. My condolences on the death of your father, but posting something like “I miss you Dad, I’m glad you’re in heaven now!” just makes you look silly. Your loved one has died, and is presumably no longer checking his social media accounts. There is no excuse for not knowing this. Let’s make third-person farewells this year’s cool new thing.
Stupid food needs to go away. As our restaurant industry continues to mushroom, so does the pretense of local chefs. Who wants seaweed on their cheeseburger? Is anyone really craving shrimp foam? Hold the truffle-infused lotus blossoms and the tongue almandine rolled in sweetened breakfast cereal, already.
Let’s abandon the myth of “closure.” Invented by pop psych gurus in the 1980s, “closure” demands a tidy ending and sense of completion after a great emotional loss. How’s about we stop pretending that everyone heals the same way, and at the same speed, and instead learn to live with our losses?
